Driven5 said:But that's also where I still don't see the point. You've already got MX5 Cup and TA2. I'm not really understanding what significant price vs performance vs visibility gap this is filling. It's being marketed as making it significantly more affordable as a privateer (Grassroots) effort, but how so? It seems more like an attempt to drum up support to get an org to start a spec class based on this so that they don't have to compete for customers like they do in TA2. Maybe if they highlighted more about why this is would be so much cheaper than TA2, other than running an uncommon engine with 2 fewer cycylinders.
We spent a good bit of time at PRI talking to the folks at Howe about this car. Yes, its priced fairly close to MX5 Cup, but a full-boat, ready to go TA-2 car is now around $170k. This is for a car legal for SCCA GT-2. If you want to run TA, it's another $4k to get the car "certified", which is nothing more than just writing a check to TA for them to say the car is "certified". And while Howe is technically competing with Cope and Lagasse's M1 chassis for customers, they really aren't. Howe is plenty busy with their TA-2 stuff sending cars to Australia and New Zealand, plus they are actually keeping a lot of Cope and M1 cars on track TA-2 here in the States, because they have a spares trailer at every race, while Cope and M1 don't. A lot of the other chassis end up using Howe stuff when E36 M3 happens at the track.
As far as running costs go, TA-2 is getting pretty stupid, and Howe realizes this. A TA-2 differential is good for 6 races, before it needs a rebuild. This new car uses an aluminum Ford 9". The gearbox is much more palatable, price-wise than a $9k Andrew's dog-box. Tires, hubs, shocks, etc. are also considerably cheaper. And the engine is based on a 4.3L out of a S-10, so not exactly "uncommon".
That being said, I also have reservations about whether they can make this a viable platform. I'll be interested to see if they can get it homologated for GT-2, and how it will fare there. If it can be competitive, then they could have a good thing going. Cheaper than a TA-2 car in GT-2, and also cheaper than the 911 Cup cars that are also in the class. We shall see...
